In a major victory for global patent standards and for efforts to offer Indian consumers top international healthcare options, Kibow Biotech Inc, USA was awarded a huge win on its Indian patent by the Madras High Court last week.

The Philadelphia-based biotech firm’s Indian patent for Renadyl™, its flagship kidney health supplement, was granted in September 2008, but later challenged by La Renon, an Ahmedabad-based company which marketed a similar product.

In a well- reasoned decision, India’s specialized intellectual property tribunal, IPAB denied La Renon’s challenge and upheld Kibow’s patent in 2013. La Renon then sought a review of this ruling before the Madras high court, which effectively agreed with the IPAB and once again upheld Kibow’s patent [Patent No. 351/MUMNP/2006, 224100 “Compositions for Augmenting Kidney Function” Patent No. 224100]. Kibow Biotech Inc has also obtained the same patent (and several more, totaling 35 patents thus far) in Australia, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, the European Union and USA.

Dr. Natarajan Ranganathan, KIBOW’s founder and chief architect, hailed the ruling as a huge victory for innovation and “the long years of intensive research and development” that went into developing Kibow’s unique “Enteric Dialysis” platform TECHNOLOGY that forms the basis for Renadyl™.

This special probiotic dietary supplement uses the bowel and the gut microbiome to assist ailing kidneys in metabolizing uremic toxins like urea, creatinine, uric acid and several cardiovascular toxins and thus potentially delay the need for Hemo- Dialysis and Peritoneal Dialysis in many patients.

"Renadyl™ is a product backed by two decades of wide-ranging international research, extensive pharma like validation including three human clinical trials and the endorsement of some of the world’s leading nephrologists for its, safety, efficacy and improving quality of life for many patients,” says Dr. Ranganathan, while also pointing to the global health community’s increasing realization of the vital role the gut microbiome plays in many of our health processes. “Given their easy availability and innocuous nature, the use of well researched and highly strain specific probiotics to modulate an unhealthy gut microbiome in CKD patients is a very promising intervention and helps preserve renal function,” he added.

Kibow’s Indian partner Centaur Pharmaceuticals also applauded the ruling. The Mumbai-based company Centaur Pharmaceuticals has the exclusive rights for importing, packaging, marketing, distribution and sale of Renadyl™ throughout India. Centaur Pharmaceuticals are also planning to import the identical specific probiotic strains/ingredients and manufacture the product in their US FDA approved facilities in Pune by the end of this year.